


Pick Up The Pieces

by LlampacaEatingGuppy



Series: Jack and Damian's Queerplatonic Adventures [2]
Category: Metal Fight Beyblade | Beyblade: Metal Fusion
Genre: Fade to black sex, Gratuitous Swearing, Jack has been pining for almost a decade and it's starting to get to him, Jack is a sad bitch, Jack likes to say the fuck word, M/M, Post-Canon, Queerplatonic Damian/Jack, Queerplatonic Relationships, Smoking, and a dramatic bitch, aro/allo relationship, aromantic Damian Hart, like very far post canon, mentioned sex, they're in their 20s
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:15:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25166818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LlampacaEatingGuppy/pseuds/LlampacaEatingGuppy
Summary: Life has an annoying tendency to wait until Jack's over the clouds to send him plummeting to rock bottom, but the familiarity doesn't make the fall any less brutal. If anything, the fact that he should have seen this coming only makes things worse.Alternatively: the end bit of Crisis in Progress, as told by Jack
Relationships: Damian Hart & Jack, Damian Hart/Jack
Series: Jack and Damian's Queerplatonic Adventures [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1768135
Kudos: 3





	Pick Up The Pieces

There’s a particular brand of humiliation that comes with looking like shit and dragging a suitcase around in full public. It doesn’t make trying not to cry any easier, but Jack refuses to let himself fall that far.

What he does let himself do is rub gingerly at his cheekbone. He barely feels it now, and it might not even still be visible, but it’s been a long time since anyone’s hit him-- if what Jonathan’s husband did can even count as a hit. It shook him a surprising amount, given how often far worse used to happen. At least he knows it won’t bruise. Damian would go on a warpath if he saw that.

He knows he’ll lose what little grip on his composure he has when he hears his voice, but he needs Damian. He needs him so bad it hurts. Or maybe that’s just the general hurt he’s feeling. Whatever it is, he bites his lip and runs through a theoretical conversation with him in his head instead. He will not be reduced to a pile of trash crying on the sidewalk. He knows Damian well enough that he can pretty much predict what he’ll say verbatim, anyways. He doesn’t need to actually speak with him. Not yet. Not until he can have a discussion without publicly sobbing.

What he does need is to get home. He can do that without issue. Damian will balk at the cost of buying a cross country plane ticket the day of departure, but he’s not the one paying for it. And screw data plans, he just wants to get out of here, so he reaches into his pocket and it’s empty.

Fuck.

He checks the rest of his pockets in a blind panic that gives him keys and a wallet, but no phone. Right. Okay. That’s fine. He’s fine.

He really isn’t. He has to stop and lean against a wall and very deliberately focus on his breathing to keep from breaking then and there. 

So, courses of action: go back for his phone? Absolutely not. But he can get to the airport, and he has his wallet, so he just has to figure out tickets. Can you even still buy plane tickets at the airport? Probably best not to risk it if he can figure something else out. 

The library. They passed one on the taxi ride from the airport. It's a mile away, at most, and he’s almost embarrassed he didn’t think of that right away. The places have gotten him through worse scrapes than this. 

He pushes himself off the wall and tightens his grip on the suitcase handle. He’s been walking the opposite direction he needs to go to get there, because of course luck is a bitch, but he’s wearing comfortable shoes. He’ll manage. 

He has to wait for a computer, but the librarian on duty is a saint and gives him a bottle of water. Jack makes a promise to himself to take as much of his cut of his next commission's paycheck as he can and donate it here. 

Eventually, though, he gets a computer. He can’t get anything one way until tomorrow, which won’t do, so he fiddles around until he manages to find a late-night flight out to Chicago and then gets a connecting flight from there. It involves an ungodly layover, but he’ll manage. He doesn’t want to stay here any longer than he has to. If that was an option, he’d just stay and take a flight home tomorrow. 

By the time he gets that all sorted, there’s a little time left before he has to give up his spot. So he pops onto Facebook. Maybe Damian can pick him up.

An unread message from Jonathan catches his attention instead.

**You left your phone here. I’ll keep it, in case you want me to give it back. I’m so sorry. Please be safe**

‘I’m so sorry. Please be safe’? After all the shit he’s pulled? Jack feels something ugly rear up, and trying to type up something scathing enough takes up all his time. Thanks to time constraints, the final result is: “I booked a flight home. Give it to me when you’re back if you want,” and he doesn’t have time to say anything to Damian at all.

At first, he hates himself for it, but it may be for the best. Popping in, asking Damian to pick him up at the airport at a certain time, and then just dropping off the face of the earth will probably give Dami a heart attack. He's more than capable of getting himself home. It'll just be a bit more of a process, since Jonathan drove him there.

Things are straightforward for a while because he’s able to put himself into a bit of a box-ticking haze. Get a taxi to the airport. Check in. Marvel at the cost of checked bags. Go through security. Find out his terminal is on the opposite side of the airport. Go there on foot so it takes more time. Stop for food on the way. Impulse buy a book. Board plane. 

There’s a brief hitch in the air, because there’s so little to do, but he manages to get a pen from a flight attendant and, between scribbling in the margins and ignoring the horrified looks from the woman in the aisle seat across from him, he manages. Hell, sometimes he even reads a paragraph or two and draws what it says. Sometimes. He’s always found gleaning the meaning out of the neverending stream of words unnecessarily tedious. 

Get off the plane. Wait for the next one. This is a series of hours that take their sweet time passing as he alternates between crying in bathroom stalls and drinking caffeine borderline compulsively. The last thing he needs is to fall asleep and miss his flight home.

Finally, fucking  _ finally,  _ he’s in the air and on the way home. Exhaustion catches up with him and somehow, even with all that caffeine in his system, he passes out for most of it. Then it’s just the basics of getting his suitcase (which, now that he’s thinking a bit more clearly, he probably could have just left with how little of anything useful there is in it) and getting a ride home. Simple stuff.

The house is empty when he hurries inside to escape the cold-- no Puppy, no Damian, nothing to do, and it’s somehow still too much. He can’t take it. So he does what any rational human being would do: caves into old addictions, grabs a coat, and buys himself some cigarettes. 

He doesn’t let himself have one on the walk back, even though it’s freezing and stretches on for forever. And none in the house, either, for that matter. He’s given Damian an asthma attack before, and never wants to do it again. The conviction behind that is probably the only reason he ever managed to quit in the first place. Then again, he hasn’t really quit if he’s already on the back porch smoking through a pack of the things, has he? 

Fuck his entire life. Why did everything have to go to shit? 

He’s saved from that particularly lovely downward spiral by a familiar whining behind him. He turns around and, sure enough, Puppy is there. He looks as precious as ever, staring up at him with one round, sad eye as he paws at the glass.

“Oh, there’s my little angel,” he coos, and maybe it’s just because he’s an emotional wreck, but just seeing him provides some marginal relief, and he regrets the secondhand smoke lingering on him that makes him unable to go inside and clutch him to his chest. So, he kneels down instead and Puppy whines again.

“Hello--” he puts his finger against the glass in front of Puppy’s nose-- “did you miss me? I missed you, too. You’re such a good dog, did you know that? I’m sorry I can’t come inside right now.”

And then there’s a familiar pair of shoes, and Jack looks up to find himself trapped in Damian’s gaze, and suddenly images from glances in bathroom mirrors flash through Jack’s head as he remembers what he looks like. 

“Dami,” he says as breezily as he can as he stands up, because Damian isn’t even bothering to try to mask his concern, and  _ fuck, how did he not think to try to clean himself up a bit before Damian found him? _ But, too late now. “Uh, hi.”

He smiles. He likes smiling. Insults become more scathing, rooms are brightened, negotiations go smoother; there’s a surprising amount of power to just showing a few teeth, and he’s good at it. But, apparently, not good enough to fool Damian.

He scoops Puppy under his arm and pulls open the door in that forceful way that sometimes still manages to make him jolt, as if the Damian he knows is a cruel trick and the universe is finally replacing him with someone else. This time, though, the panic comes from something else. 

He tries to block the opening and hopes he’s not close enough to set off Damian’s asthma. “No, no, no-- it’s cold and I’ve been chain smoking and--”

“I’m coming out. Move over.”

“You’re asthmatic!” 

“And my best friend just broke his two year no-smoking streak and looks like complete shit.” 

Wow. Harsh, much? Still, it isn’t as if Jack can argue with the point, even if it makes tears well up in his eyes. He can argue that it doesn’t mean Damian needs to come out here, but he won’t win it. Hell, he doesn’t have the energy to even try. “At least get a coat, okay?”

He lets himself lean over the railing. Damian comes back out and stands next to him, and Jack very deliberately keeps his eyes on the snow in their little yard. “Please don’t get an asthma attack and die. I’m nowhere near emotionally equipped to deal with that right now.”

“My inhaler’s in my pocket,” Damian tells him.

“That’s good,” Jack says, even though it really isn’t, because if Damian’s inhaler is in his pocket, he’s expecting to need to use it. And, if he does, it’ll be because of Jack. But that’s not a fight he has the energy for, either, so he brings his cigarette back up to his lips anyways. And he knows Damian must be worried, and confused, and wanting answers, and misery loves company, so he adds, “Jonathan’s an ass.”

Damian doesn’t answer right away. When he does, he almost sounds afraid of the answer. “Anything you want to press charges over?”

“No.” The surprise, or maybe it’s relief, manages to coax something resembling a laugh out of him. “God, no. Nothing like that. You and your worst case scenarios.”

“So, what happened?”

Jack makes a bitter noise that almost manages to pass for a laugh, except for the fact that it really doesn’t at all. “His husband came for a surprise visit, found out about his gig, and showed up at the hotel.  _ Apparently _ he’s some trilingual business hotshot that’s abroad half the time. Which, really, I should have figured that he had a sugar daddy, but he told me that he’d inherited money and I fucking believed it--”

His voice cracks. Fuck. He wipes at his eyes gingerly, the caution more out of habit than any concern for whatever may be left of his makeup.

“Wow. He really is an ass.”

He lets out a choked sob and does the only thing he can think to do: try to hide his heartbreak behind indignation. “A side hoe, Damian. I’ve been reduced to being a  _ side hoe!  _ Me! He showed up while we were  _ fucking!” _

But he can’t keep it together any more. He just can’t. Because even that attempt at a shield hurt to put up. He just cries, and cries, and cries for what feels like eternity. 

Eventually, he manages to get a grip. “Jesus, this is pathetic.”

“No, it’s not. You really liked Jonathan.”

“I really did,” he agrees. “I almost thought that, maybe--”  _ that I could move on with him, _ he nearly finishes before catching himself. Even remembering that he loves-- no, loved-- Jonathan almost as much as he loves Damian, and that he was willing to build it and work on it until it was something equally as strong and unshakable only for Jonathan to have done what he has-- it’s enough to threaten to tip him back into sobs. He forces himself to take a deep breath, and if that deep breath happens to be filled with smoke, well, he’s smoking. It happens.

He lets it out slow. There’s a bizarre grace to smoke coiling about as it catches the wind he’s always enjoyed watching. Then on a whim, he lets out a bitter laugh and says, “I can’t even pull the ‘if we’re still single by the time we’re thirty, we should just marry each other so we don’t die alone’ card because you’re aromantic.”

Like most things he says when delirious with tears, he regrets it the instant it comes out. He slaps a hand over his mouth on instinct, as if that’ll be able to shove them back in.

Fuck.

All the fuck.

He’s almost scared to see the disappointed look on Damian’s face, but he makes himself look anyways. He’s frowning, but it quickly turns into something worse: hurt. And then Damian’s avoiding his gaze for a change, and no, he can’t fuck this up, not now. He can’t lose Jonathan and Damian. His heart won’t survive it.

“Oh God, Damian, I’m sorry. That didn’t come out like-- I shouldn’t have said that. I’m so--”

“It’s okay.”

The relief those two words grant is incredible, but misplaced. He’s never been mad at Damian for breaking up with him, true, but what asshole would? It wasn’t that either of them did anything wrong; Damian just figured out a part of himself and their romantic relationship wasn’t in the cards any more. And ordinarily it’s fine, a low-level ache that he almost doesn’t know what he would be like without. But sometimes, just sometimes, no matter how hard he tries, loving Damian the way that he does when he knows it’s neither wanted nor reciprocated hurts. And the fact that he so much as alluded to the fact that Damian is hurting him with something that he can’t help is frankly unacceptable. He knows that. And Damian needs to know that he knows that.

“No, it’s not. Just because I’m falling apart doesn’t mean I get to be an asshole.”

Damian looks at him again, at least, and his face softens into something exasperated, but not angry. “Dude, it’s fine. I know you well enough to know that you cracking a joke isn’t malicious.”

Oh. That’s what Damian thinks that was? Well… 

“Yeah, it was a joke. Glad you got that,” he says. It’s not exactly a convincing performance, but Damian leaves it be. 

They watch the sunset in silence. Ironic, considering how long Jack’s wanted to. Not like this, standing in the cold, but in the summer, sitting in a pair of outdoor chairs, with chalk art from earlier in the day scrawled across the cement. If he’s feeling particularly adventurous during his fantasy, they even hold hands.

“You should get inside. It’s freezing.” Damian breaks the silence.

“I can’t smoke inside.”

“I’m not letting you get hypothermia just so you can keep trying to give yourself lung cancer.” 

Damian’s tone leaves no room for an argument. He takes one final drag and crushes the rest of his perfectly good cigarette into the snowbank. That’s one less he has to worry about.

Still, he keeps one eye on the opened pack on the table. He’s not looking forward to trying to stop again, and the last thing he wants is Damian making it harder by hiding the remaining cigarettes he has.

Well, no, that’s not true. The last thing he wants is to give Damian an asthma attack. Which he feels like he’s about to do at any moment, because Damian caught him heading towards the hall to grab a clean set of clothes and a shower and practically hauled him into the kitchen, apparently not giving a damn about secondhand smoke.

“Can’t I just… throw those out?” 

Damian’s frowning at him, and his disappointment cuts deeper than it probably should. Not that he has any excuse for himself, so he just shrugs and resigns himself to the extra degradation. “I might dig them out later if you do.”

Damian wrinkles his nose. “Dude, that’s gross.”

“Addictions aren’t pretty.”

“Yeah, that’s true.”

Part of Jack wants to leave it at that, and keep the cigarettes where he can see them, but Damian is still frowning at them. “You can still toss them if it’ll make you feel better.”

Damian does. Jack tries very hard to be glad to see them go. 

“So, not to bring up any more bad feelings than necessary, but why didn’t you call to tell me you were coming home? Or text? That’s not like you.”

“Oh, um, right.  _ That _ .” Jack hesitates, and then the guilt hits when he sees the subtle shift in Damian’s face from curious to worried and realizes that he’s still mostly in the dark. He should have spent the last bit of time at the library ignoring Jonathan and filling him in on what was happening. 

“I was… impressively upset, and the entire situation blew up so fast that I-- it’s not that I didn’t want to talk to you, because God, did I need someone to talk to, but I was upset and his husband was pissed and he was trying to blame me for everything--”  _ and terrified me, _ he leaves out-- “and I just needed to get out. I didn’t realize I forgot my phone until I was gone, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to go back into that hornet’s nest for it.”

“Wait, then how did you get home?”

He shrugs. “We were in an older part of town and passed a library on the way in. I walked there, bought tickets home and then got a taxi to the airport. I had my wallet, at least.”

“Right, okay.” Damian nods, and glances at his suitcase. “So, how much of your stuff does he have?”

“A lot,” he groans and rests his head on the table. “I basically threw clothes on and ran. He’s got almost all the clothes I packed, and my makeup, and my fucking expensive drawing tablet.” That’s probably the worst thing he’ll have lost, if he doesn’t get it back. Damian got it for him after seeing him swoon over the thing online. He’ll keep and cherish it forever, unless Damian decides to make updating it a thing. Receiving it was so far out of left field that he honestly has no idea if that’s something Damian’s planning on or not. 

“I still have some lingerie that I didn’t even unpack because it was  _ supposed _ to be a birthday-slash-early Valentine’s Day present, but like hell if that does me any good now--”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Damian somehow manages to cut him off gently, and Jack finally realizes how high his voice has gotten. “I’ll see what we can get back, okay?”

Jack attempts to hide under his arms so he can wallow without an audience. It doesn’t work. “Can you get those cigarettes back out for me?”

“No.”

“Bastard,” he huffs. Damian doesn’t deserve it, he knows, but fuck. He hates the idea of having to dig them out himself, and he’s never going to be able to quit like this, and they’re the only ones he has unless he goes to buy more. He gets up and wipes at the stray tears that have leaked out in a vain attempt to pull himself together. “Why do you have to look out for me? I’m gonna go take a shower.”

He cries more in the shower. Over Jonathan, over smoking, over Damian-- over everything.

* * *

Jack follows a riveting routine that involves varying doses of smoking, crying, stress eating, and vent art for a week. There are a few reprieves in there, including walking in on Damian making good on his promise to see what he can get back from Jonathan. The answer is everything. He suspects that the cold steel in Damian’s too polite tone has something to do with it, because, as much as Damian hates to admit it, one of the things that’s molded much of who he’s become is that he was practically raised by Ziggurat.

It might be just his tendency to over-analyze body language, but Jack noticed years ago. The way Damian narrows his eyes and sets his jaw when he’s annoyed, or leans a particular way in a chair (on rare instances he’s sitting in something resembling properly), or absently taps at the table so slowly the average person might be tempted to think that he’s trying to do it intentionally and keeps forgetting. 

The voice thing, though, is by far the most noticeable. They’re both aware Ziggurat somehow passed on to Damian his ability to make everything that comes out of his mouth sound like a threat; it’s almost impossible to miss. And Damian, to Jack’s surprise, fucking weaponizes it. Not often, and  _ never _ at him, but he doesn’t waste the talent. 

Jack usually finds it unnerving at best, but he can practically see Jonathan squirming on the other end of the conversation. The cheating bastard isn’t exactly confrontational. And when Damian notices him and cracks a grin that’s bordering on sadistic, Jack knows he’s enjoying it. 

He finds himself smiling back. 

* * *

A week after the husband incident, he almost kills Damian.

Damian won’t admit it, but Jack knows. He can tell Damian overdosed on his inhaler when he sees his hand visibly shake when he reaches to grab the can of ginger ale on the table. 

His asthma is usually so well-controlled that sometimes Jack manages to forget he has it. The only thing that’s different is that Jack’s started smoking again. He’s just come back inside from a smoke break, actually.

They stare at each other for a moment, mutually horrified. Although Jack isn’t sure what Damian has to be horrified about. 

“It wasn’t that bad,” Damian says, as if they’re talking about the weather and not something vital to live. It's also a lie. If it actually wasn't that bad, he’d have taken a couple puffs from his inhaler and been fine.

Jack swallows. Nods. Oh, look at that, there’s a terribly interesting speck on the floor that he should stare at, how convenient. “It was the smoke, wasn’t it?”

Damian hesitates. “Yeah.” Jack hears him take a sip of ginger ale. He’s probably nauseous. “Sorry. I’ve been trying to be careful,” Damian adds, as if it was his fault, and that's what does it.

He throws out all but one of his cigarettes that evening. And then dumps every scrap of expired food he can find in the fridge on top of them. It’s a fair amount. They both hate emptying the fridge and neither has done it recently.

He won't smoke something dug out of the final result even if his life depends on it, but he pulls the garbage anyways. Best to keep the smell of spoiled food from becoming a problem, and all that.

Then he has what he hopes really will be the last smoke of his life this time, strips off most of his clothes while still on the back porch and leaves them there to air out, and goes to take his post-smoking shower of shame.

When he comes out, he can smell popcorn. It’s sitting ready to go with cocoa in the kitchen. It’s almost enough to make Jack cry, so he just pretends it isn’t there and latches himself onto Damian from behind and nestles his face in his shoulder.

“Hi,” Damian says, and his arms twist a bit in his grip. The jostling knocks loose the towel wrapped on top of Jack’s head, and it unwinds and falls over Damian’s shoulder. “Your hair smells good.”

Smelling good is good, Jack thinks. If he smells good, he won’t make Damian’s lungs try to send him to an early grave. The reminder makes him cling a little harder on instinct.

“I was going to offer you popcorn before bringing out the real stress food, but this is more of a candy corn kind of situation, isn’t it?”

Jack isn’t religious, but he hopes something blesses Damian for that offer. “Get it for me?” he asks weakly.

“Sure.”

He curls into his corner of the couch. It’s one of the few seats in the house that doesn’t get hit by sunlight at some time of the day. The others include the chairs at the kitchen table and one recliner in Jack’s room that serves more as a laundry holder than anything he sits in.

Honestly, when they were looking for a nicer, more permanent place to live, Jack liked the apartment better. It had everything: dishwasher (which he still misses having, even if Damian is a saint who washes the dishes most of the time), a dog park for their angel, no need to take out a mortgage or do any outdoor maintenance-- perfection, really. But, well, he’s never been good at saying no to Damian, especially when he’s practically glowing as he darts around, gesturing wildly because  _ holy shit, Jack, look at all these windows!  _

The ridiculous number of chairs, all situated so that Damian can sit in the sun any time that sunshine is present, followed soon after.

Damian comes back with a bowl of candy corn, and not even a very big one, the asshole. “What is this?”

“A bowl of candy corn.” Damian settles into the spot next to him. 

“We have more than this,” he insists.

“And you’ll make yourself sick if I give you the entire bag.”

Well, okay, that’s true, but he still complains about it. All too soon he’s left with an empty bowl.

He runs a finger over the rim and notices that his nails are chipping. He did them in a period of particularly poor judgement which somehow convinced him that having Damian’s eyes linger on his hands was exactly what he needs when he’s half heartbroken and half yearning for something he shouldn’t want. 

Hell, they’re lingering now. Jack pretends not to notice.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” Damian breaches the silence first. And Jack doesn’t. Nor does he want the popcorn, or the hot cocoa. He’d take more candy corn, but Damian doesn’t offer that. All he wants is to get some of this shit off his chest.

Which, a small part of him rationalizes, he can. At least some of it, and even marginally lightening the load will probably feel so much better.

He takes a deep breath, fidgets a moment, then says, “I’m going to die alone.” 

Which is true, because he’s effectively sunk. How is he supposed to build a relationship with anyone else that’s as strong and what he has with Damian when they’ve been through so much, and shared so much, and Damian feels like a part of Jack’s very core? It took years, actual  _ years _ with a very active dating-slash-casual sex life to find someone he could even get close to that level with, and even then, the moment it came crashing down he ran right back to Damian. Shaking his feelings for the man is impossible, and he’s not getting any younger. The number of people willing to go on casual hookups with him is going to start petering out eventually.

“No, you won’t,” Damian, the oblivious thing that he is, says as if that notion is ridiculous. “You’ll find somebody else eventually, out of sheer probability if nothing else. And, even if you don’t, I’m cool with marrying you instead if it makes you feel better. It’d be good for tax benefits.”

That is nowhere near anything Jack expects him to say. He freezes, unable to do more than just stare at Damian before reality catches up to him and he shakes himself back into awareness. “No, I… I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Do what to me?” Damian asks, as if he has no idea.

“Make you marry me.” 

“I’m literally the one who just offered.” 

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he says, more to remind himself than actually answer, because he’s dangerously close to doing something very self-incriminating, like getting on his knees and going, “ _ Yes, please, Dami, I want you to marry me because I love you.” _

“It’s not uncomfortable.” The response is not very helpful at all. “We’re already pretty close to married, if you look at things objectively.” 

“No, but I-- never mind, forget it,” he says, and curls himself a little tighter, because Damian is rubbing sandpaper against his very thin resolve.

Maybe, it will be better to just talk. Damian’s just offered to marry him, for Christ’s sake. That’s a thing with very romantic connotations. Worst case scenario, Damian gets angry at him for it, or feels betrayed, and leaves. And that will hurt, but, well, it’s nothing he doesn’t deserve, is it? He’s been in Damian’s life for years, twisting platonic affection into something it isn’t and lingering like some sort of fucking creep who won't take no for an answer.

He's always talked himself out of confessions before, but this? The sheer level of trust Damian puts in him is baffling and damningly underserved. He can't in good conscience keep doing this to him.

The anger will be justified. Jack won’t fight Damian and will do whatever he wants, because that’s the least he can do to atone, but being resigned to his fate banished from him makes it no less devestating. So, to try to quell his nerves, he asks, “If I tell you something horrible, will you try not to be mad?”

“If it’s about Jonathan, no promises.”

He can’t help the small laugh that comes out, but the irony of Damian being protective over him hurts now. “No, I know you’re already mad at him. This is about me.”

“Dude, I already have so much dirt on you. What’s one more thing?” 

It takes a moment for him to be able to steel himself. It won’t work, of course. Damian knows him so well that he’ll know how to hurt him if that’s what he wants. No amount of mental preparation will undo that. “I love you, Damian.”

“Oh.”

Damian sounds stunned, and in the moment Damian takes to piece together all the implications of that statement, the panic sets in, and words are coming out of Jack’s mouth so fast he can barely keep track of them. Trying to explain that he knows he’s in the wrong, and he’s tried to stop, and he’s sorry, as if that’s going to make everything better instead of just being excuses. 

The silence that falls after the final, desperate apology leaves his lips is torture, and Jack leans away, tears already leaking from sheer anticipation. He can’t even look at Damian, just waits for the hammer to drop, tries to predict what Damian’s going to say first.

“It’s not uncomfortable.”

That must be a lie, but he doesn’t sound mad yet. Maybe he won’t. 

A small part of Jack clings to the hope that he can get by with Damian giving him a gentle,  _ “thanks, but I don’t,” _ and then he can assure him that’s okay and he respects that, and they can carry on as if this never happened. 

“We literally broke up because it was uncomfortable,” he says, ignoring it.

He hears Damian groan and risks a glance to find him fidgeting. “That’s… different. It wasn't that I didn't like dating you. Parts of it were fun. I just-- when I figured out I didn't love you how you wanted me to, it scared me. And by the time I figured myself out enough to realize I was okay with the idea of taking another swing at things, you seemed over it.”

The very idea of being over Damian is ridiculous enough to be funny, in a pathetic sort of way. “I can promise you I wasn’t, but that’s okay.”

“It happened while you were with Jonathan. You seemed pretty damn over it.”

Jack’s mind is usually a loud place that's full of a flurry of opinions, thoughts, and ideas, but Damian’s flat response sends everything’s brakes shrieking as it comes to a halt. And then it’s quiet, and he’s staring at Damian. 

It’s something he doesn’t allow himself to do, for reasons of the not wanting to be a gross creep variety. Ironic, because objectively, Damian doesn’t have the flair that usually draws Jack to the people he gravitates towards. But somehow, looking at Damian for too long typically feels like a borderline religious experience. 

One he might be able to have more often, because Damian is staring back and it sounds like Damian’s trying to say he loves him, too.

“Yeah, okay, that was a good talk, I guess--” Damian starts before he can say anything, but he’s too preoccupied to do anything other than steamroll the conversation into the direction he wants.

“You’re aro.”

“Yes?” Damian looks confused. “Why?”

“But you would date me? Am I reading this right? I feel like I’m not.”

Damian makes a face and shrugs. “I don’t know if it’s  _ dating _ . I’ll never love you however the hell I’m probably supposed to for that, but you’re the closest I’m probably going to get and life without you here feels really weird and wrong, so… I guess I’d kinda date you?”

Not dating, then, but dating-not-dating. Except Jack isn’t exactly sure what that means. Low commitment? Open relationship? No, those are both still dating, probably. Something less romantic. 

“So, what are we talking about here? Friends with benefits?” he guesses.

“Maybe?” Damian rubs the back of his head. “Like, I’m aro, not ace so the benefits part sounds good…” he makes a small, frustrated noise, “that just doesn’t really sound great though. It’s more like-- like we exist together and you’re in love with me and I’m not in love with you, and we’d both be okay with that.”

And that is… a strange sentence. And he’s not really sure how to conceptualize what that theoretical situation even looks like. He pulls up his legs and rests his chin on his knees, still digesting the description Damian just gave him in an attempt to make sense of it. 

“Dude, it’s okay if you don’t get it. You might hurt yourself thinking too hard.”

Well, that’s the single most ridiculous thing Jack’s ever heard. Even if he'll probably take anything Damian is willing to give him, he needs to know what the boundaries of this thing are. “But I  _ want  _ to get it. I can’t agree to it if I don’t get it.”

“God, you’re so stubborn.” Damian says, visibly frustrated, and for a moment Jack worries he’s crossed some sort of line. But, after a moment, Damian keeps going.

“Okay, you remember when we were dating? That’s all fine. Farther than that is fine. I literally couldn’t figure out my romantic orientation for forever because kissing is fun as hell and you’re hot. Literally all I would want different is for you to know that I  _ don’t _ love you like you love me, and for me to know that’s okay because you don’t expect me to.”

Oh. He can do that. He’s more than okay with that. That's so much more than expected and it's wonderful.

“So, if I were to say that’s all fine and we start doing… whatever you want to call that--”

“The word would probably be queerplatonic, if you want to get technical.”

He’s mentally filing the word away even as he asks, “Would you want to make out?”

It’s selfish, to ask for something so physical immediately, but he’s never claimed to have good judgement and he wants to.

And Damian grabs his wrist and pulls him forward. "Did you not hear me say kissing is fun as hell?"

So Jack kisses him like their lives depend on it, and then starts doing what he remembers Damian liked in the instances that were as close to sex as they ever got when they were young until he comments-- actually fucking comments-- on it, as if he’s surprised Jack hasn’t forgotten. Which is ridiculous, so he goes after the hot spot Damian has under his ear which never fails to make him shudder.

And then, unfortunately, they have a dog. And that dog decides to interrupt at this very moment, because the universe hates him. 

Jack is many things. Into engaging in passionate acts of affection with an audience is not one of them. At all. “Really, Dog?”

“Don’t get mad at him.” Damian almost sounds amused, the traitor.

He gets off Damian’s lap with an embarrassing lack of grace, still miffed. “I’m not, but how am I supposed to do this while he’s watching?”

Damian just snorts and follows suit and leans close. “You know bedrooms have doors, right?”

Jack tries very hard not to let his imagination run away from him, because he knows full well that beds aren’t just for sex, but damn. “That’s not too fast for you?” he asks. 

Damian makes an amused noise. “Not if it isn’t for you.”

* * *

The morning after what Jack has assigned the best night of his life, even though it'll probably be replaced soon while they learn more about how to please each other, he’s warm, and safe, still half-asleep, and someone is trying to get out of his arms.  _ Damian _ is trying to get out of his arms, and oh, no. That won’t do at all. So he adjusts his grip and pulls him back down.

“Really, Jack?”

Dami starts trying to squirm out again, even though it’s not time to get up. He holds him tighter. “Stay.”

“No.”

And, even half-asleep, he knows what that word means and lets go, quickly burrowing back into the blankets against the blast of cold air. “It’s early, Dami, come back.”

“I’d rather not overheat and die.”

Well, at least his tired eyes have a sight to admire while he picks his clothes up off the floor. He freezes halfway through putting his pants on and curses under his breath before shoving them the rest of the way up and rushing out the door. 

Silly Dami. 

He tries to doze, but ends up dragging himself out of bed not long after, which absolutely is not because he’s clingy. 

Damian’s already got the coffee pot going, and Jack loves him for it. Which he’s allowed to do now. He's allowed lots of things now, and he has questions over how far these new boundaries go, if he can kiss him good morning and say he loves him, but that's not a conversation to have before coffee. 

Puppy scurries past his feet, and Jack smiles, remembering Damian’s insistence he was just going to rest for a minute before he practically passed out. “I told you he’d be fine.”

Damian finally notices him and blinks in surprise. “I thought you said it was too early.”

“You got up.”

Damian shakes his head and gives him a fond look. “Well, don’t worry about that being a recurring issue because we are  _ not _ sharing a bed again. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to kill me.”

“Oh.” He tries to hide his disappointment, but this early, he isn’t very good at it. “Would it help if I took a blanket off?”

“I’m not permanently sharing a bed unless you let Puppy sleep on it, too.” The ass. He knows Jack won’t cave on that; he can tell by the smugness in his voice.

He shuffles past him to the table. The coffee pot is just about done and making the noises Damian claims sound like a half-drowned demon. “That’s a hard bargain, Hart.”

“I know. That’s why I said it.”

“ _ How _ are we supposed to have sex with an audience? I’m not that kinky.”

This, apparently, is hilarious. And Jack is tired, needs coffee, and withdrawal symptoms are going to start hitting hard soon, but he's happy.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! <3


End file.
